Ribofunk by Paul di Filippo Read Free Book Online Page B

ruttin’.
    It’s good to get the terms straight in any relationship right from the start.
    Well, the day was pretty shot by then, but we still had time for a tour of the Slikslak itself, to get acquainted with the place we were gonna be demolishin’.
    Everyone was kinda disappointed when we arrived at the old Superconductin’ Supercollider, which had had such a checkered, on-again, off-again history. Wasn’t much of the SCSC aboveground. It was all buried beneath the prairie, a ring of deep-cooled magnets and beam-bouncers and particle- chambers some fifty miles in diameter, all contaminated by decades of experimentation in a nice mild way that promised low rems. (I understand the lunar facility that replaced the Slikslak is twice as big, and cost half as much to build, what with the free vacuum and new superwire.)
    When we got down below, though, everyone’s enthusiasm picked up. This job was gonna be easy—hardly any exotics aside from liquid hydrogen—and the sheer size of the place meant it would take practically forever. What a sugartit assignment!
    Back at the motel, with dusk comin’ down like silk sheets in a Paris helmsley, we found that DDI had laid on a humongous Tex-Mex barbecue for our first night. As I’ve said a hundred times—and not just when Stack was around to overhear—they are swell employers with a lot of class. Smellin’ the beefaloes and leanpigs turnin’ on their spits, holding a cold cheer-beer in my hand, watchin’ the stars poppin’ out one by one like random pixels on God’s antique monochrome display, listenin’ to the joyful chatter of my fellow gips, contemplatin’ the easy job ahead of me, I was as near to heaven as I have ever been on this mostly sad ol’ earth.
    And that peaceful feelin’, so pure and unnatural, I reckon now, is what should have alerted me to my comin’ troubles.
     
    * * *
     
    It was the first weekend after we had started the Slikslak job, and we gips were ready to party. Several days of bone-breakin’ labor, with nothin’ to do after hours except raster whatever gaudy gore’n’garters plasma-com the flatscreen was offerin’ or play a hand of flashcards or metabolize some samogon at the dingy Waxahachie roadhouse known as Mustang Sally’s (the lady owner wore a palomino’s tail), had left us achin’ for some release.
    So a bunch of us—me, Geraldine, Tam, Tino, Spud, Geneva, IgE, even Benzene Bill and some others—signed out a van and made the trip into Dallas, lookin’ for some Big Fun.
    I was drivin’ and all my actions felt effortless. We had all had a thorough tonin’-up performed on us by the company cell-scrubber, so all my workweek aches and pains were gone. My skin was as tingly as that of a playpet from Hedonics Plus. Beyond the ultrapure single-crystal windshield, the speedy nighttime scenery looked particularly hi-rez, with all the shadows dithered to fractal depths. I was confident tonight would rack up some megadigits on the Fun Readouts.
    Once in Dallas, we headed straight for Deep Ellum, the prime pleasure district of the city. Parking the van and setting its defenses, we hit the crowded sidewalks, walkin’ with our kickass gipsy style, guys as if we had a barrel between our legs, gals like they were slidin’ along on a greased pole right at crotch height.
    I tell you, it made me proud as the ten-year-old who knocked up the neighborhood widow to be stridin’ through the city with my fellow gips, confident in our solidarity and fully aware of our so-ci-et-al importance.
    Deep Ellum was thronged with folks of every stripe and pedigree enjoyin’ the false halogen day. There were splices runnin’ errands for their owners. There were pre- teeny peptide-poppers four or five cohorts down the genetic line from my own, streamin’ free ’n’ wild with the members of their sets and posses, sportin’ their fancy Action Potential clothes. There were gerrys and gullas. There were NU cops carryin’ flashlights and shockers to